We conducted a set of experiments to compare the e¤ect of ambiguity in single person decisions an... more We conducted a set of experiments to compare the e¤ect of ambiguity in single person decisions and games. Our results suggest that ambiguity has a bigger impact in games than in ball and urn problems. We …nd that ambiguity has the opposite e¤ect in games of strategic substitutes and complements. This con…rms a theoretical prediction made by Eichberger and Kelsey (2002). In addition, we note that subjects' ambiguity-attitudes appear to be context dependent: ambiguity-loving in single person decisions and ambiguity-averse in games. This is consistent with the …ndings of Kelsey and le Roux (2015). Financial support from the University of Exeter Business School is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Robin Cubitt, Jürgen Eichberger, Zvi Safra, Dieter Balkenborg, Miguel Fonseca and participants in seminars at Bristol, Exeter and Heidelberg for their comments and suggestions. We thank Tim Miller for programming the Ellsberg Urn.
This study examines the efficiency of tools for fighting software piracy in the conditional distr... more This study examines the efficiency of tools for fighting software piracy in the conditional distributions of software piracy. Our paper examines software piracy in 99 countries for the period 1994-2010, using contemporary and non-contemporary quantile regressions. The intuition for modelling distributions contingent on existing levels of software piracy is that the effectiveness of tools against piracy may consistently decrease or increase simultaneously with increasing levels of software piracy. Hence, blanket policies against software piracy are unlikely to succeed unless they are contingent on initial levels of software piracy and tailored differently across countries with low, medium and high levels of software piracy. Our findings indicate that GDP per capita, research and development expenditure, main intellectual property laws, multilateral treaties, bilateral treaties, World Intellectual Property Organisation treaties, money supply and respect of the rule of law have negative effects on software piracy. Equitably distributed wealth reduces software piracy, and the tendency not to indulge in software piracy because of equitably distributed wealth increases with increasing software piracy levels. Hence, the negative degree of responsiveness of software piracy to changes in income levels is an increasing function of software piracy. Moreover the relationships between policy instruments and software piracy display various patterns, namely: U-shape, Kuznets-shape, S-shape and negative thresholds. A negative threshold represents negative estimates with increasing negative magnitude throughout the conditional distributions of software piracy. We also discuss the policy implications of our study.
We report an experimental test of the influence of ambiguity on behaviour in a coordination game.... more We report an experimental test of the influence of ambiguity on behaviour in a coordination game. We study the behaviour of subjects in the presence of ambiguity and attempt to determine whether they prefer to choose an ambiguity safe option. We find that this strategy, which is not played in either Nash equilibrium or iterated dominance equilibrium, is indeed chosen quite frequently. This provides evidence that ambiguity aversion influences behaviour in games. While the behaviour of the Row Player is consistent with randomising between her strategies, the Column Player shows a marked preference for avoiding ambiguity and choosing his ambiguity-safe strategy.
We conducted a set of experiments to compare the e¤ect of ambiguity in single person decisions an... more We conducted a set of experiments to compare the e¤ect of ambiguity in single person decisions and games. Our results suggest that ambiguity has a bigger impact in games than in ball and urn problems. We …nd that ambiguity has the opposite e¤ect in games of strategic substitutes and complements. This con…rms a theoretical prediction made by Eichberger and Kelsey (2002). In addition, we note that subjects' ambiguity-attitudes appear to be context dependent: ambiguity-loving in single person decisions and ambiguity-averse in games. This is consistent with the …ndings of Kelsey and le Roux (2015). Financial support from the University of Exeter Business School is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Robin Cubitt, Jürgen Eichberger, Zvi Safra, Dieter Balkenborg, Miguel Fonseca and participants in seminars at Bristol, Exeter and Heidelberg for their comments and suggestions. We thank Tim Miller for programming the Ellsberg Urn.
This study examines the efficiency of tools for fighting software piracy in the conditional distr... more This study examines the efficiency of tools for fighting software piracy in the conditional distributions of software piracy. Our paper examines software piracy in 99 countries for the period 1994-2010, using contemporary and non-contemporary quantile regressions. The intuition for modelling distributions contingent on existing levels of software piracy is that the effectiveness of tools against piracy may consistently decrease or increase simultaneously with increasing levels of software piracy. Hence, blanket policies against software piracy are unlikely to succeed unless they are contingent on initial levels of software piracy and tailored differently across countries with low, medium and high levels of software piracy. Our findings indicate that GDP per capita, research and development expenditure, main intellectual property laws, multilateral treaties, bilateral treaties, World Intellectual Property Organisation treaties, money supply and respect of the rule of law have negative effects on software piracy. Equitably distributed wealth reduces software piracy, and the tendency not to indulge in software piracy because of equitably distributed wealth increases with increasing software piracy levels. Hence, the negative degree of responsiveness of software piracy to changes in income levels is an increasing function of software piracy. Moreover the relationships between policy instruments and software piracy display various patterns, namely: U-shape, Kuznets-shape, S-shape and negative thresholds. A negative threshold represents negative estimates with increasing negative magnitude throughout the conditional distributions of software piracy. We also discuss the policy implications of our study.
We report an experimental test of the influence of ambiguity on behaviour in a coordination game.... more We report an experimental test of the influence of ambiguity on behaviour in a coordination game. We study the behaviour of subjects in the presence of ambiguity and attempt to determine whether they prefer to choose an ambiguity safe option. We find that this strategy, which is not played in either Nash equilibrium or iterated dominance equilibrium, is indeed chosen quite frequently. This provides evidence that ambiguity aversion influences behaviour in games. While the behaviour of the Row Player is consistent with randomising between her strategies, the Column Player shows a marked preference for avoiding ambiguity and choosing his ambiguity-safe strategy.
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Papers by Sara le Roux